{"id":8872,"date":"2026-04-24T11:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T11:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/8872\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T11:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T11:06:18","slug":"macronism-is-ruining-france-a-new-lame-duck-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/8872\/","title":{"rendered":"Macronism is ruining France: a new \u201clame duck\u201d scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Euractiv has published an\u00a0article <\/a>examining a political scandal in France. Caliber.Az <\/a>presents the most telling parts of the article.<\/p>\n

With less than a year until the French presidential elections, Emmanuel Macron has been accused of using his final months in power to place loyalists in some of the country\u2019s most important state institutions.<\/p>\n

From the Constitutional Council to the Court of Auditors, from the Banque de France to the ombudsman\u2019s office, a string of looming or recent appointments has sharpened opposition claims that President Macron is trying to preserve influence after he leaves the \u00c9lys\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

The far right sees an outgoing president trying to frustrate any future victory by Marine Le Pen\u2019s Rassemblement national (RN) camp. The left claims Macron is weakening watchdogs meant to control or constrain executive power. Conservatives accuse him of turning independent authorities into extensions of his political camp.<\/p>\n

Whether that is a fair verdict or a standard exercise in end-of-term presidential politics, one thing is already clear: the battle for power in 2027 has started out of sight from the public campaign trail.<\/p>\n

The broader fight reveals how much power sits beyond elections in France\u2019s highly centralised system. Senior appointments can shape legal rulings, budget oversight and administrative decisions for years if not decades, which partly explains why the stakes feel so high for opposition parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Macronism is collapsing in the country, it clings to the counter-powers,\u201d the conservative Republicans said in a recent statement.<\/p>\n

Conflict of interest allegations<\/p>\n

The most controversial move so far was the nomination in February of former budget minister Am\u00e9lie de Montchalin to lead the Court of Auditors, the body charged with scrutinising public spending. Critics said that since Nicolas Sarkozy\u2019s presidency, there has been an informal tradition of appointing opposition figures to the top job in order to dispel doubts about independence.<\/p>\n

That custom began in 2010 with Socialist heavyweight Didier Migaud and continued with the former EU commissioner Pierre Moscovici a decade later. But by choosing an outgoing Macron minister, opponents say the president has broken with precedent. As soon as she took office in February, de Montchalin announced she would stay out of the auditor\u2019s work on public finances in 2025 to avoid conflict of interest allegations.<\/p>\n

Far-right lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy called the nomination \u201ca scandal\u201d, accusing Macron\u2019s camp of seeking to \u201cmask the ruin of the public accounts.\u201d Socialist MP Arthur Delaporte said the move represented \u201cthe absolute mixing of roles weakening the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Legal challenges have followed, with anti-corruption campaigners from the NGO Anticor and others launching cases contesting the appointment. The final ruling is expected in the coming weeks, but there is little chance of annulling the appointment, said one of the plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this were happening in Mr Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Hungary, it would have made every democrat\u2019s hair stand on end,\u201d said Paul Cassia, a law professor. He added that the president\u2019s camp was exploiting legal loopholes that give the president wide room for manoeuvre in the Fifth Republic\u2019s highly centralised system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president has created a structural conflict of interest here. We are told she will recuse herself from all matters involving the policies she herself helped implement \u2014 but who checks that? Who enforces it?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that magistrates who had questioned the appointment in a public opinion piece were themselves targeted through proceedings by the court\u2019s ethics committee.<\/p>\n

The dispute echoes the uproar last year over Richard Ferrand, one of Macron\u2019s oldest political allies, taking the helm of the Constitutional Council. His arrival was denounced by critics as another example of presidential patronage. His competence and impartiality were also questioned at the time, before a tight parliamentary approval process.<\/p>\n

More battles may be brewing. Former justice minister \u00c9ric Dupond-Moretti is among those mentioned for the post of D\u00e9fenseur des droits \u2013 the ombudsman charged with defending civil liberties and overseeing public services. This would likely trigger fierce resistance from magistrates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the Council of State the name of Marc Guillaume has circulated for the vice president role despite past controversy over sexism allegations. Guillaume, who served as the government\u2019s secretary-general during Macron\u2019s first term, was moved to a local governor or prefect role after the claims emerged.<\/p>\n

Attention is also turning to France\u2019s financial establishment. Banque de France governor Fran\u00e7ois Villeroy de Galhau has stepped down. Names circulating for his succession in Paris include the Elys\u00e9e\u2019s secretary general\u00a0 Emmanuel Moulin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the race for 2027 takes shape, France\u2019s institutions are becoming a campaign battlefield of their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Euractiv has published an\u00a0article examining a political scandal in France. Caliber.Az presents the most telling parts of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3975,3657,3656,5,3976,3979,1277,3978,3977,3974],"class_list":{"0":"post-8872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-analysis-of-azerbaijan","9":"tag-azerbaijan","10":"tag-baku","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-important-news-of-azerbaijan","13":"tag-international-experts","14":"tag-interviews","15":"tag-interviews-with-azerbaijani-analysts","16":"tag-news-from-baku","17":"tag-news-of-azerbaijan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}